CHAP. XXXIX.] &quot;THE THIRD HOUSE.&quot; 261 



allowed to drop. I inquired what might be the meaning of this 

 joke, and was asked in reply whether I had read the letters of 

 Jesse Hoyt and others, edited by Mackenzie ? I had, indeed, 

 purchased the pamphlet alluded to, containing a selection from 

 an immense mass (said to amount to twenty-five volumes) of the 

 private and confidential correspondence of official men, left acci 

 dentally by them, on a change of administration, in the custom 

 house of New York. All these had been printed for the benefit 

 of the public by their successors. The authenticity of the docu 

 ments made known by this gentlemanlike stroke of party tactics, 

 purporting to be penned by men who had filled high places in 

 the State and Federal Governments, had been placed beyond a 

 doubt ; for the writers had attempted to obtain an injunction in 

 the law courts to stop the publication, claiming the copyright of 

 letters which they had written. Some time before this conver 

 sation, a merchant of Boston, who wished me to look only on the 

 bright side of their institutions, and who was himself an optimist, 

 had said to me, &quot; Our politicians work in a glass hive, so that 

 you always see the worst of them ; whereas your public men can 

 throw a decent vail of secrecy over much that may be selfish and 

 sordid in the motives of their conduct. Hence the scandal of 

 your court and cabinets is only divulged to posterity, a hundred 

 years after the events, in private memoirs.&quot; Unfortunately for 

 this theory, a glance at the Mackenzie letters was enough to 

 teach me, that, if the American bees work in a glass hive, the 

 glass is not quite so transparent as my friend would have led me 

 to believe. The explanation of the satirical motion made in the 

 House at Albany, then proceeded thus : &quot; The patronage of the 

 State of New York is enormous ; the Governor alone has the 

 appointment of two hundred and sixty civil officers, and the 

 nomination of more than two thousand places is vested jointly in 

 him and the senate. Some of these are for two, others for five 

 years, and they are worth from two hundred to five thousand 

 dollars a year. Among the posts most coveted, because the 

 gains are sometimes very high, though fluctuating, are those of 

 the inspectors, who set their mark or brand on barrels of exported 

 goods, such as flour, tobacco, preserved pork, mackerel and other 



